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finding those award winners at your local bookstore
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From: Alison Morris <alison>
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 13:06:22 -0500
As a devoted, passionate, well-informed children's and YA book buyer for an independent bookstore that DOES ordinarily have "all of the latest great books on our shelves", I can't help feeling a little bit defensive about the number of people attacking their local stores for not having the most recent award winners in stock in the days immediately following the big ALA announcements.
Unless you are a large, warehouse-style store, I can tell you for a fact that it's almost impossible to have a large cache of the award winners on your shelves when the "big" awards are announced, unless those "big" awards are given to books that are selling extremely well, or you get lucky with your awards predictions, or you have psychic powers!
For one thing, we buyers have no more idea what's going to win those "big" awards in advance of the fact than anyone else on this or any other list-serv of devoted, passionate, well-informed children's lit. fans. It is also true that no stores can afford to buy or keep on their shelves 20+ copy of every book published in a given year.
I ordered up on the titles we thought were the most likely to take top prizes this year, but...? Kira-Kira and a handful of others admittedly came as a surprise to us here. We DID carry all of the books that were awarded major prizes (and most of those awarded lesser-known prizes, too), but in Kira-Kira's case, we only had one copy on hand when the awards were announced. Why did we only have one copy on hand? Because sales of the book had slowed considerably. Plain and simple.
I was at the Midwinter press conference when the awards were announced and called our store to report the results almost immediately thereafter. Despite my acting with such speed, our distributors were already out of Kira-Kira, so we came up empty-handed. We're now in the agonizing position of waiting on a reprint, like almost everyone else. And I'm sincere when I say "agonizing" -- it pains me not to be able to get these book(s) into the hands of teachers, librarians, kids, and anyone else who's heard the big news!
I completely understand everyone's disappointment with not finding the newly-recognized books in their local stores, but trust me when I say that most stores are even more frustrated by those absences than you are. Just imagine how many times a day we have to explain to customers why we don't have the books and don't know when we will!
Ah, if only all our customers subscribed to ccbc-net... (But perhaps we could just hand out copies of this message!)
With assurance that we best booksellers are doing our best, alison
Alison Morris Children's Book Buyer
____________________ Wellesley Booksmith 82 Central St., Wellesley, MA 02482 phone: (781) 43160 fax: (781) 43160 www.wellesleybooksmith.com
____________________ An Independent Bookstore for Independent Minds
Message----From: Brenda Boggess [mailto:trbrenda at hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 11:37 PM To: Subscribers of ccbc-net Subject: Re: [ccbc-net] Kira Kira
For the second year in a row, I've used the books that the CCBC considers for their Mock Newbery and these excellent selections have led us to some exciting, committed, and pretty quick reading. In both cases my students were able to read most of the books that have been eventually chosen by the Newbery committee as winners and honor books. Whether or not they end up agreeing with the ALA, they come away feeling deeply connected to the process. This year, our school's mock Newbery winner was Al Capone Does My Shirts. Kira-Kira was not as widely read, but the students who did read it loved it and felt vindicated by the ALA's decision. Now everybody wants to read it, and in their annoyance that our local B & N doesn't have it, we've agreed that someday I will open a bookstore that has all of the latest great books ON THE SHELVES. The CCBC lists would be a great guide to any buyer.
Brenda Boggess State College Friends School
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Received on Wed 19 Jan 2005 12:06:22 PM CST
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 13:06:22 -0500
As a devoted, passionate, well-informed children's and YA book buyer for an independent bookstore that DOES ordinarily have "all of the latest great books on our shelves", I can't help feeling a little bit defensive about the number of people attacking their local stores for not having the most recent award winners in stock in the days immediately following the big ALA announcements.
Unless you are a large, warehouse-style store, I can tell you for a fact that it's almost impossible to have a large cache of the award winners on your shelves when the "big" awards are announced, unless those "big" awards are given to books that are selling extremely well, or you get lucky with your awards predictions, or you have psychic powers!
For one thing, we buyers have no more idea what's going to win those "big" awards in advance of the fact than anyone else on this or any other list-serv of devoted, passionate, well-informed children's lit. fans. It is also true that no stores can afford to buy or keep on their shelves 20+ copy of every book published in a given year.
I ordered up on the titles we thought were the most likely to take top prizes this year, but...? Kira-Kira and a handful of others admittedly came as a surprise to us here. We DID carry all of the books that were awarded major prizes (and most of those awarded lesser-known prizes, too), but in Kira-Kira's case, we only had one copy on hand when the awards were announced. Why did we only have one copy on hand? Because sales of the book had slowed considerably. Plain and simple.
I was at the Midwinter press conference when the awards were announced and called our store to report the results almost immediately thereafter. Despite my acting with such speed, our distributors were already out of Kira-Kira, so we came up empty-handed. We're now in the agonizing position of waiting on a reprint, like almost everyone else. And I'm sincere when I say "agonizing" -- it pains me not to be able to get these book(s) into the hands of teachers, librarians, kids, and anyone else who's heard the big news!
I completely understand everyone's disappointment with not finding the newly-recognized books in their local stores, but trust me when I say that most stores are even more frustrated by those absences than you are. Just imagine how many times a day we have to explain to customers why we don't have the books and don't know when we will!
Ah, if only all our customers subscribed to ccbc-net... (But perhaps we could just hand out copies of this message!)
With assurance that we best booksellers are doing our best, alison
Alison Morris Children's Book Buyer
____________________ Wellesley Booksmith 82 Central St., Wellesley, MA 02482 phone: (781) 43160 fax: (781) 43160 www.wellesleybooksmith.com
____________________ An Independent Bookstore for Independent Minds
Message----From: Brenda Boggess [mailto:trbrenda at hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 11:37 PM To: Subscribers of ccbc-net Subject: Re: [ccbc-net] Kira Kira
For the second year in a row, I've used the books that the CCBC considers for their Mock Newbery and these excellent selections have led us to some exciting, committed, and pretty quick reading. In both cases my students were able to read most of the books that have been eventually chosen by the Newbery committee as winners and honor books. Whether or not they end up agreeing with the ALA, they come away feeling deeply connected to the process. This year, our school's mock Newbery winner was Al Capone Does My Shirts. Kira-Kira was not as widely read, but the students who did read it loved it and felt vindicated by the ALA's decision. Now everybody wants to read it, and in their annoyance that our local B & N doesn't have it, we've agreed that someday I will open a bookstore that has all of the latest great books ON THE SHELVES. The CCBC lists would be a great guide to any buyer.
Brenda Boggess State College Friends School
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To: listserv at lists.education.wisc.edu
Body: signoff ccbc-net
Received on Wed 19 Jan 2005 12:06:22 PM CST
